Smartphone, tablet users not satisfied with web speed: Survey

New York: Smartphone and tablet users in the US are not satisfied with the internet speed and a large number of people want their desired web pages to load within seconds, a survey has said.
An online survey of over 5,000 people in the US, conducted by research and analysis firm Keynote, found that 60 per cent of tablet users expect to wait less than three seconds to get to a website.

Further, 64 per cent of the smartphone owners want a website to load within four seconds. Among those working on a personal computer, 48 per cent of users want their download speeds to be faster than two seconds.

"Overall, the survey showed that while expectations vary somewhat depending on the platform desktop, smartphone or tablet, they are definitely increasing. In short, user expectations, no matter the device, are for very fast performance," the study said.

Despite such high expectations, the survey found, many sites on smartphones and tablets continue to be slow and disappoint consumers on a regular basis.

As per the study, 66 per cent of the smartphone users found `web pages slow to load` as the most frustrating issue, while 48 per cent found `website not optimised for smartphone` a key problem.

"The expectation gap for performance has tightened considerably across platforms, and vendors ignore these increased expectations for blazing fast performance at their own peril," Keynote said.

In the cases where mobile websites take lot of time to load, 44 per cent of the survey respondents try refreshing the page, 21 per cent close the page and try again later while 16 per cent give up.

The study further said that 29 per cent of smartphone users and 37 per cent of tablet users spend at least 1-2 hours browsing the internet.

Accessing local information emerged as top activity for 88 per cent of the smartphone users, while majority of the tablet users (79 per cent) go to internet for news and entertainment.

In terms of usage, more than 40 per cent of the smartphone owners access e-mail, social media updates and map information on their devices, while a little over 30 per cent of the tablet users do the same.

Keynote said that smartphone users preferred to use mobile apps over mobile websites for map information, social media updates, e-mail, and banking information.